Photo: Charité | T. Leinich

Almost 80 percent of the world's population use traditional therapies such as acupuncture, medicinal plants, meditation or fasting. At the same time, there is growing interest in a healthcare system that perceives people as a whole and strengthens their self-healing powers. With the new Charité Competence Center for Traditional and Integrative Medicine (CCCTIM), Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin is now creating a place where these approaches can be scientifically researched, further developed and systematically integrated into modern healthcare.

As the largest center of its kind in Europe, the CCCTIM combines academic excellence with the diversity of integrative therapy methods. In addition to Friede Springer gGmbH, the Software AG Foundation (SAGST) is also one of the project's supporters. "Integrative and conventional medicine can only gain from such a dialog at eye level," says SAGST board member Dr. Johannes Stellmann, explaining the background to the funding. The global perspective of the institution is also particularly convincing - an approach that is becoming increasingly relevant in view of climate change and resource crises. "With the CCCTIM, a hub is growing up where therapeutic knowledge from different cultures is responsibly incorporated into a sustainable concept for the medicine of tomorrow," Stellmann continued.

During a ceremonial launch at the Berlin Museum of Medical History, it became clear how tangible the vision of the new center has already become: a study center for evidence-based research into integrative methods is currently being established, and university medicine is also building a university outpatient clinic to transfer these approaches to healthcare. Knowledge is also to be firmly anchored in teaching in the future. The new center is also part of the "Prevention" component of the Charité Strategy 2030. In addition, it is currently in the process of being recognized as an official cooperation center of the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre, a new project of the World Health Organization for the further development and research of evidence-based therapies of naturopathy and traditional medicine.

Photo (from left to right): Prof. Georg Seifert (Head of CCCTIM) with Prof. Heyo K. Kroemer (Chairman of the Charité), Dr. Nicole Schweitzer (CCCTIM), Dr. Friede Springer and Dr. Johannes Stellmann (SAGST) at the launch event in the historic lecture hall ruins.